Harold Innis in the New Century: Reflections and Refractions

The book is divided into three parts. The eight essays of Part One, "Reflections on [Harold Innis]," examine the development of his thought, the changing climate for the reception of his ideas, and his approach to intellectual practice. Richard Noble's analysis of Innis's conception of freedom, Judith Stamps's discussion of Innis's intellectual debt to Scottish Common-Sense philosophy and Hegelian dialectics, Michael Dorland's analysis of Innis's specification of the relationship between religious and political life in Canada, and James W. Carey's examination of Innis's relationship to the Chicago School of Sociology prepare the way for essays on Innis's intellectual practice by Irene M. Spry, Liora Salter and Cheryl Dahl, Donald Fisher and Michele Martin, and [William J. Buxton]. The four essays of Part Two, "Gaps and Silences," also consider the content and reception of Innis and his work. They offer accounts of the causes and consequences of Innis's silence on gender relations (Jane Jenson), of the "lukewarm" reception to Innis in Quebec (Daniel Salee, Alain-G. Gagnon and Sarah Fortin), and of the "unenthusiastic" response to his intellectual contribution to a political economy of the Maritimes (James Bickerton). Part Three, "Innis and Cultural Theory," covers some of the same ground as these reflections but its focus is the contemporary relevance of Innis and his writings. These eight essays offer constructive critiques of the often surprising ways in which Innis's theoretical and empirical arguments about culture and cultural production illuminate such current discussions as core-periphery relations ([Charles R. Acland]), modernity and postmodernity (Andrew Wernick, Ray Charron), the notion of the "margin" (Charles R.